


The 40 Towards Central University

by galactic_coffee



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bus AU, I wrote this while waiting in the rain for a bus in December, M/M, Sort of? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 07:03:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7350769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galactic_coffee/pseuds/galactic_coffee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every morning at eight, Roy takes the 40 towards Central University. </p><p>Every morning at eight, Roy braves the unappealing sights and sounds of the 40 towards Central University. </p><p>This morning, Roy finds a distraction. A very angry distraction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The 40 Towards Central University

**Author's Note:**

> So, this fic is literally just me venting and sort of day-dreaming. I started it last December when I had serious reason to be angry at Dublin Bus. I had to wait over half an hour for what was meant to be a regular bus service to my college. It was eight in the morning, it was raining, the temperature was below zero, and I couldn't afford coffee. At one stage I had hidden from the elements in a side street because the board said I had twenty five minutes until my next bus. Then, suddenly, a bus arrived and left before I had the chance to hop on.
> 
> All the descriptions of buses here are based on my own experiences, no exaggerations whatsoever - I have literally had people deal heroin in the seat behind me at four o'clock on a Thursday afternoon.
> 
>  
> 
> Tl;dr, I was angry so I wrote gay fic to cheer myself up, but didn't finish it until this week.

Roy did not like public transport. The bus system specifically. He could handle trams; he could manage taxis. But the buses were on another plane of existence. Murderous tin cans, trundling down narrow streets at a snail's pace, stopping every few metres. Eliciting odd smells and dangerous sounds. Roy hated public transport.

Standing, battling against biting winds while waiting for one of these rolling death-traps didn't much help the situation. Honestly, it was an awful start to what Roy could only presume would be an awful day at the office. He pulled the collar of his jacket up towards his ears. The wind blew it back down. He muttered curses to himself.

The bus rounded the corner, it's tall frame swaying from side to side a little too violently for Roy's liking. He would take a seat at ground level thank you very much.

The bus came to an abrupt halt, sending the passengers inside flying forwards then backwards again, only for them all to surge towards the exit at once.

Roy hauled himself onto the bus once the fray had dispersed - somewhat happy to be out of the cold, definitely unhappy with the odd smell that accompanied the warmth of the bus. Was that smell weed, human waste or a mixture of both? Roy decided it was more likely to be a mixture. Which said a lot about the city to be honest.

Roy pressed his travel card against the sensor with the fatigue and exasperation of a public transport veteran. The bus moved forward with a jolt, propelling Roy down the aisle with the grace of a baby deer, only for him to discover there were no seats. None at ground level at least, and there was no chance of Roy risking the upper level.

Sighing, he hiked his laptop case further up his shoulder and pulled his hands back into the sleeves of his coat. Only then did he grab hold of the gaudy yellow hand rails and manoeuvre himself into the small standing area by the bus doors. It was roomy here at least - just Roy and some badly dressed kid - a student probably. Black tracksuit bottoms and a glaringly red hoodie - really? He was holding the handrail with his bare hand as well. Roy cringed inwardly, and outwardly. Mentally, he wished the kid luck with the inevitable onset of hepatitis.

The bus lurched forward again and Roy gripped the hand rail tight. The badly dressed young man let his backside slide down the rail it was resting on - his eyes never left the stack of notes in his free hand.

Traffic was a bitch today, Roy noticed when he glanced out through the condensation on the windows to see the blurry lights of cars and other buses completely stationary. He'd be late, probably.

Definitely.

His oh-so-fashionable companion was beginning to get antsy. He had put his notes away in his backpack and had begun to drum his fingers against the hand rail. Mere seconds later he pulled his notes from the backpack again, but didn't bother trying to focus on them. He looked almost pointedly away from Roy, towards the driver, as if a glare alone could clear the way for the bus. Roy knew from experience that it could not.

"Glaring at the cars doesn't make much of a difference, you know," he leant forward to quietly state the obvious.

Vicious gold eyes turned on him as the young man snarled, "Do you really think I don't _fucking_ know that-?"

Roy could only blink, completely taken aback. Not only was he rude, he was stunning as well.

"-I have a mother shitting class in five fucking _minutes_ ," the young man went on, then turned to stare at the ceiling, as if asking for strength from the powers to be. Roy just sighed.

"What do you study?" he started this train wreck of a conversation - perhaps he could derail it. 

"I teach Medieval Sciences," he spat. 

"Teach?!" Roy was taken a back. 

"Teach."

"But," Roy's eyes wandered around the bus frantically - looking for something intelligent to say, anything but the words on the tip of his tongue. "But you're like twelve?"

The young man absolutely fumed. He turned to face Roy completely, the notes in his hand crushed in a fit of rage. His face was rapidly changing shades to match the deep red of his hoodie.

"Who, the FUCK do you think you are?!" the kid all but yelled. "I'm fucking twenty five, is this even happening?"

At this stage the bus driver was glaring at the two of them through his rear view mirror. Roy sighed.

"Look," he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Looking young will stand to you in about twenty years." The young man stared at him as if he'd grown a second head. "And, in fairness, you're more likely to be studying at twenty five, than teaching."

The young man frowned and kicked the gaudy yellow rail in front of him without much conviction. "Still though," he paused as if he had more to say - maybe an argument to make. Nothing came.

"So what about you?" the man asked after a heavy silence. 

"Pardon me?"

"What do you _do_? Keep up, old man," he rolled his eyes to the heavens - or more so to the stained and speckled roof above them. 

“I work a desk job in the city centre – boring really,” Roy shrugged. “The people I work with are good people though – they make it bearable at the very least.”

“Even your boss? Will they mind that you’re gonna be late,” the kid asked wryly. 

“My boss is a dick – so definitely yes,” Roy rubbed a hand over his face, then realised he’d used that hand to hold onto the railing and quietly shrivelled up inside. “Do you have any hand sanitizer?”

The man beside him bellowed a laugh – head thrown back, and one hand gripping the front of his hoodie. “Oh boy that’s funny!” he wiped a tear from his eye with the heel of his hand. “Even if I did have any, it wouldn’t be strong enough for the kind of shit floating around this tin can.”

Roy turned to look down the length of the bus; at the man either passed out or deceased in the back row; the couple sitting opposite him, organising their small plastic baggies on the seat between them; at the elderly woman sneezing repeatedly all over the beer-scented individual in the seat ahead of her. “I think you might be right,” Roy sighed as much as he said. “It was more for comfort, really.”

His companion snorted, “Much good that’ll do ya.”

The bus lurched to a start again, and the traffic began to jerk forward once more. After a few moments – despite being in motion – Roy’s badly dressed companion began to get antsy again. “We’re still about a half hour away,” he muttered. “I’m gonna miss the fuckin’ class, and then they’ll sack me, and then I’ll be broke, living on the street –“

“And maybe then you’ll have the time necessary to take a chill pill?” Roy quirked an eyebrow and the young man threw him a glare. 

“That’d be a nice change – chilling,” he laughed bitterly. “Seriously though, it’s only an hour long lecture. Should I let them off the hook? It _is_ a Monday morning.”

Roy considered the young man for a moment, a little ball of condensed rage, and apparently compassion. What he wouldn’t give to be let off the hook at eight o’clock on a Monday morning. At that thought, gears began turning – then whizzing - in his head. 

“How about,” Roy said, with all the confidence and suaveness one could muster at this stage in the morning. “If you let them off the hook, I’ll let myself off the hook –“

“That’s not really a very persua-“

“- and buy you a coffee.”

“Ah.”

Roy smirked.

“I’ll let the students know,” he said shoving his notes into his backpack for a final time, then stuck out his hand with a grin. “Edward Elric.”

“Roy Mustang,” he shook Edward’s hand. “I know a lovely spot one stop before the university.”

“Fuckin’ sweet.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading the whole way through this silly little piece of vent-y self indulgence! It's my first fic for this ship, and the first fic I've written in a _long_ while, so I'm really testing the waters with it.
> 
> I'd love if you could let me know what you thought of it <3


End file.
